Prep baseball: Branson claims NCS pennant with another upset win
A difficult trek through the regular season only served to harden the Branson Bulls into champions. The fifth-seeded Bulls raised the pennant after they upset No. 2 Head-Royce, 11-3, on Friday to capture the North Coast Section Division V crown for the second time in three years.
“Their incredible belief in themselves got them here,” Branson head coach Steve Reinertsen said. “They had to go on the road as a low seed. They beat the fourth seed, the one seed and now the No. 2 seed to win the championship. They’re playing for each other, for Branson and for Marin County Athletic League baseball.”
The Bulls secured a berth in the NorCal Regionals, set to begin next week.
Branson struggled with a five-game skid to open their MCAL schedule, finishing with a 3-13 league record, 12-12 overall in the regular season. But the Bulls proved to be rock solid in the NCS playoffs to win their first pennant since 2022, when they defeated Berean Christian, 3-1, in the championship.
“We have different roles now,” said junior second baseman Tom Lardner. “I was a freshman in 2022 and didn’t play as much. Now, we have more experience. This one definitely feels different.”
Wilson Wendt, called “Mr. Reliable” by his teammates, controlled the action on the mound like a conductor as he held the Jayhawks to seven hits, only three for extra bases, in a complete-game win.
“That’s what I do,” Wendt said. “I pitch efficiently. I throw strikes. I might not strike everyone out, but I’ll get the ground balls and that’s what we did.”
Cooper Tenney was 2 for 4 with a double and a triple, two RBIs and two runs. Mo Jacoby was 2 for 4 with a solo homer, a single and three runs. Lardner was 2 for 3 with a two-run homer. Jackson Kayser singled and drew three walks to score three runs.
The Bulls gave Wendt a comfortable position to start from. Tenney sent a triple over the center fielder’s head to score Jacoby and Kayser. An RBI single from Liam Parrot staked Branson to a 3-0 lead in the first inning.
The Jayhawks got one run back in the bottom of the first, before Jacoby came up in the second inning with a solo blast to the solar panels on the hillside beyond left field in the homer-friendly park, giving the Bulls a 4-1 lead.
The balls continued to fly off the Branson bats in the fifth inning. Tenney hit a skyrocket to left field that looked destined to be a home run, but just barely got caught in the fences for a ground rule double to score Kayser. Parrot’s swat to deep center stayed in the park, but it was enough to bring Tenney around home.
“I didn’t quite get a home run, but I’ll take it,” Tenney said.
Kaden Gustafsen drilled a fly ball deep up the line into left field for a double with one out to continue the onslaught in the fifth. Lardner then launched his third home run of the season over the ivy-covered, left-field wall for a commanding 8-2 Branson lead.
The Bulls took advantage of five Head-Royce errors, including a costly mistake in the sixth inning. Pinch runner Enrique Dominguez slid into third base on a steal and the throw from the catcher missed the third baseman and rolled into the outfield. Dominguez quickly picked himself up and dashed home. Jacoby charged around the bases from first base to end up on third. He scored moments later on a groundout by Tenney. Kayser, who drew a walk to get on base and stole second, eventually scored on a groundout by Parrot for a dominating 11-3 lead.
“This year, we had higher expectations of ourselves,” Jacoby said. “I think we didn’t really show what we could do as a team in those MCAL games. So come playoff time, I feel like we had a little more of a chip on our shoulders. We have the five seed, but we feel a little disrespected in that. When you go on the road, you’ve got to be aggressive.”